Conventional medicament delivery devices utilize a needle to administer a medicament by injection. For example, a conventional syringe has a needle coupled to a barrel containing the medicament, and the medicament is forced through the needle during the injection. Typically, the needle is protected by a rubber sheath. However, as shown in FIG. 5, the rubber sheath can be subjected to external forces which cause the rubber sheath, and hence the needle, to bend, rendering the syringe unusable. As shown in FIG. 6, a prior solution to preventing the rubber sheath from bending has been to encase the rubber sheath in a plastic cover. However, the conventional plastic covers, as shown in FIG. 6, are bulky and have a large diameter (relative to the rubber sheath), such that packaging of the syringes and/or use of the syringes in an injection device (e.g., an auto-injector) is sub-optimal, given the space required to accommodate the plastic cover.
Conventional needle shielding assemblies are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,636,201 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,325, US 2007/250016 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 6,229,314 B1, U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,818, and US 2004/116874 A.
However, there remains a need for a needle shield assembly that protects the needle and allows for various uses of the medicament delivery device.